Pre-College Reading Lists: Freshman Disorientation?

The summer reading that colleges assign to their incoming freshmen is too easy, too liberal, and too contemporary. So says a recent report from the National Association of Scholars, which compiled a list of two hundred and ninety such assignments, starting with the 2009 academic year. Of course, the group—founded shortly after Allan Bloom wrote “The Closing of the American Mind” and inspired by that text—says the same things about American universities more generally, so the findings don’t come as much of a surprise.

Still, the list is worth a look. Out of nearly three hundred titles, the N.A.S. identifies just five “classics,” and even there they are stretching a little, including “The Maltese Falcon,” by Dashiell Hammett, in that group. As the president of the N.A.S., Peter Wood, told Fox News, “Something is wrong when Frankenstein is the best book on the list; the only work of philosophy is The Communist Manifesto; and books on Africa outnumber books on Europe nearly six to one.” About that final quibble: the organization identifies “western intellectual heritage as the indispensable foundation of American higher education.”

The project might have been more than a curiosity if not for the inclusion of a ludicrous, color-coded key, which groups books together in such categories as “Multiculturalism/Immigration/Racism,” “Environmentalism/Animal Rights/Food,” and “Islamic World.” Those are the most popular ones. From there, they get a bit goofy. Take for example “Society/Poverty/Women” (a bit broad, no?) and “Rapacious Capitalism,” which has three entries. And then there’s my favorite, “Despair,” (in black, of course) a literary trait the report seems to condemn, though perhaps not. “Despair” marks five selections, including Nathanael West’s “Day of the Locust,” which seems as likely a candidate as any for “Rapacious Capitalism,” but, oh well.